Ex-police officer gets four years jail time

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This article was published 25/02/2022 (1721 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An ex-police officer who broke into a house and stabbed a man multiple times while in the grips of addiction was sent to jail for four years Friday afternoon.

Conrad Baker, 49, previously pleaded guilty to impersonating a peace officer and break-and-enter with assault in two separate incidents.

On Nov. 19, 2019, an Addictions Foundation of Manitoba employee reported a man was in the lobby of the group’s Brandon building claiming to be an undercover police officer, Crown attorney Yaso Mathu told the court. The employee said he was refusing to leave and was wandering the hallway.

When officers arrived, Mathu said Baker was in a meeting with a large group, but was not wanted there as he was making participants nervous.

The employee pointed out Baker, who said he had just arrested someone for hundreds of missing person cases, she said.

When Baker stepped out into the hallway, he told police he was an officer with the Brandon Police Service and had been reinstated by “the Government of Manitoba,” Mathu said.

“Obviously the story was all over the place,” she said, adding he assured police he was not under the influence of drugs.

At one point, Baker was a police officer, from August 2006 until May 2007, with the Dakota Ojibway Police Service (now the Manitoba First Nations Police Service), Mathu said, but not in 2019.

The most serious incident was on Dec. 15, 2019, at approximately 10 a.m., when the Crown said police received a call of a man sitting in the snow on 10th Street wearing only pyjama bottoms. At the time he was crying and had bloody hands.

When officers arrived the man told them an intruder came into his residence through the backdoor and then “terrorized him” before stabbing him, she told the court.

In a statement to police, the victim said he was watching TV when he heard a knock at his backdoor, Mathu said. The victim got up to see who it was and saw a man standing in the kitchen with a knife in his hand.

He kept asking where “the bag” was, which Mathu said the victim had no clue about. At one point the intruder asked the man to put his hands on the table as he grabbed a wine bottle and slammed it on his left hand.

The victim was then ordered downstairs as he followed with a knife and threatened him with violence, the Crown said. The man searched all the rooms in the basement and was upset when he couldn’t find anything.

Eventually, the man ordered him into the laundry room and asked the victim to kneel down before stabbing him twice on the left side of his body, Mathu said.

He was then ordered upstairs as a cardboard box was placed on the victim’s head, she said.

The man searched the rest of the residence with the victim at knifepoint, according to the Crown, before the victim had a chance to run out the front door for help.

When police arrived, they searched the house. They found Baker at approximately 10:45 a.m. nearby, who matched the description given to the offices, she said. Officers approached Baker and he dropped a small metal multi-tool from his hand.

Police found a number of weapons on him, including an improvised mace in his coat pocket and a kitchen knife. Mathu said the knife had a red, “blood-like” substance on it.

The victim had two one-centimetre puncture wounds to his left flank consistent with being stabbed, Mathu said, adding he was “very lucky” it wasn’t more serious.

The Crown recommended a sentence of four years behind bars for the break-and-enter, saying Baker violated the victim’s basic need to be safe in his own home.

“This is a crime that violates the sanctity of a person’s home … The accused terrorized the victim throughout his house and stabbed him,” Mathu said.

Defence lawyer Bob Harrison said the case is a good example of how alcohol and methamphetamine can affect a person’s life. Baker spent time in the military and as a police officer, but substances threw his life off course.

“We know what the issue is,” Harrison said, adding Baker started using meth in 2018.

Baker has prominent Gladue factors, Harrison said, and was abused on a daily basis as a child. He also witnessed lots of violence and has mental health issues as a result.

“He felt like he was losing touch with reality … I think that shows his mental state and perhaps why all this happened,” Harrison said, adding he was experiencing symptoms of psychosis from drug use at the time.

Harrison jointly recommended the four-year sentence with Mathu, along with a fine and probation for impersonating a police officer.

Speaking to the court, Baker alleged he was assaulted many times between 2007 and 2018, which he said resulted in a multitude of injuries.

He said showing up at the AFM building was a cry for help and a last-ditch effort to get treatment for addiction.

Baker also apologized to the victim and asked for forgiveness. He said the incident has since led him on a road to healing.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that this was probably the best thing that could have happened to me and the worst thing that could have happened to you,” Baker said through tears.

Judge Patrick Sullivan said Baker was living a productive life, but alcohol and meth hit him like a train.

He said, though, the break-in was very serious.

“I’m at a loss for words, to some extent, to describe what happened here,” Sullivan said of the break-and-enter.

“It’s out of a horror movie. A stranger breaking into your home, ordering you around your house and eventually into the basement, forcing you to kneel and then stabbing you; covering your head with a box. This is horrific.”

Sullivan went along with the joint recommendation, sentencing Baker to four years in jail for the break-and-enter, minus approximately three years time already served. He also sentenced him to a $200 fine for impersonating a police officer and 18 months of supervised probation.

Despite the crimes, Sullivan said he hopes the time in jail is the life intervention Baker needed.

» dmay@brandonsun.com

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